Reading meme 7/23
Wednesday reading meme
Yeah, I haven’t been updating this journal much, have I? Oops. Last week I finally met crime writer Megan Abbott at Kramer Books and listened to her talk about “The Fever”, mass hysteria, and the Salem witch trials. Abbott remembered interacting with me on twitter and piping up that she should definitely have a DC stop on her tour someday. So yes, that was a fun moment.
I also went to the Folger Library for a lecture on heraldry and the controversy over Shakespeare’s coat of arms. If you thought academics fought, you should see the mud slinging by the 16th century heralds in the marginalia of treatises explaining rival heralds’ research and blazonry flaws.
I also have been trying out Oyster Books since it opened up to the Android market. The Bookriot Quarterly box included a two month subscription credit, which was a nice starter. Basically for the $10 a month fee, you get access to Oyster’s library of ebooks, including Simon & Schuster & Harper Collins and a ton of small presses. It’s geared heavily to the backlist, not the latest and greatest, so if there’s an author you haven’t read their older works by, it’s great. You can have as many on your reading list as you want and there’s no return dates or whatever. I love my real library but realistically I’m a slow reader, so I don’t have to struggle with "Well, but can I finish that in time..." I’m still not sure about reading on the phone, but it’s good for a few pages/screens on the Metro.
What am I reading now?
Seanan McGuire’s One Salt Sea, Book #5 in her October Daye series. I’m perpetually behind in this series, which is good for my TBR challenge, I guess. At least when I’m done with this one, I can read her "In Sea-Salt Tears" story. I like tie-in stories, but I do wish they were more standalone.
If you like snarky history, Tansy Rayner Roberts has published a collection of essays called 50 Roman Mistresses: Scandal, virtue and womanhood in Ancient Rome about various notable women in Roman history. (Tansy also has some very strong Opinions about Roman personages, including Marc Antony.) Tansy has a degree in classics which she used for her Love & Romanpunk collection that I adored. The collection is available in all/most of the ebook markets. She’s also doing a genderflipped space opera serial of Three Musketeers.
What have you finished reading?
My first Oyster book was E.L. Konigburg’s From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. No, I’ve never actually read it. I’ve seen bits of the movie versions, so I knew some of the plot, just not the specifics. It really just made me want to go back to the Metropolitan Museum and scout the parts I didn’t see the last time I was in town on a daytrip. I mostly remember seeing the Greek & Roman wing that didn’t exist back then -- I know I never made it over to the Egyptian area at all. The MET even dedicated a newsletter for kids geared to Mixed-Up Files fans -- they still get queries years later. It is dated and implausible from the financial perspective, but part of me doesn’t care. Part of me is hiding out in a museum.
I am quite sad to admit I finished the last Sarah Caudwell Hilary Tamar mystery, A Sibyl in her Grave. Sad because there are no more and that’s quite depressing. It did leave me contemplating how one would go about adapting these books in BBC/PBS fashion, especially if you wanted to keep Hilary’s gender identity left up in air. One suggestion might be to put Hilary more offstage and turn the letters and telexes into more modern emails -- not an ideal place for your detective. On the other hand, it’d be interesting what a director would do with that box completely open. The only thing that skewed me one direction or other was Hilary’s interactions with the hated Bursar in the final book and how he reacted towards Hilary. I go back and forth. I’m almost afraid to ask how they’d cast my dear namesake.
What will I read next?
I never win Goodreads giveaways, but somehow I managed to snag a Librarything ARC for Melissa De La Cruz’s Vampires of Manhattan, her Blue Bloods all grown up spin-off. I’m both looking forward/dreading this, since I haven’t been able to get into her dystopian Frozen at all.
Yeah, I haven’t been updating this journal much, have I? Oops. Last week I finally met crime writer Megan Abbott at Kramer Books and listened to her talk about “The Fever”, mass hysteria, and the Salem witch trials. Abbott remembered interacting with me on twitter and piping up that she should definitely have a DC stop on her tour someday. So yes, that was a fun moment.
I also went to the Folger Library for a lecture on heraldry and the controversy over Shakespeare’s coat of arms. If you thought academics fought, you should see the mud slinging by the 16th century heralds in the marginalia of treatises explaining rival heralds’ research and blazonry flaws.
I also have been trying out Oyster Books since it opened up to the Android market. The Bookriot Quarterly box included a two month subscription credit, which was a nice starter. Basically for the $10 a month fee, you get access to Oyster’s library of ebooks, including Simon & Schuster & Harper Collins and a ton of small presses. It’s geared heavily to the backlist, not the latest and greatest, so if there’s an author you haven’t read their older works by, it’s great. You can have as many on your reading list as you want and there’s no return dates or whatever. I love my real library but realistically I’m a slow reader, so I don’t have to struggle with "Well, but can I finish that in time..." I’m still not sure about reading on the phone, but it’s good for a few pages/screens on the Metro.
What am I reading now?
Seanan McGuire’s One Salt Sea, Book #5 in her October Daye series. I’m perpetually behind in this series, which is good for my TBR challenge, I guess. At least when I’m done with this one, I can read her "In Sea-Salt Tears" story. I like tie-in stories, but I do wish they were more standalone.
If you like snarky history, Tansy Rayner Roberts has published a collection of essays called 50 Roman Mistresses: Scandal, virtue and womanhood in Ancient Rome about various notable women in Roman history. (Tansy also has some very strong Opinions about Roman personages, including Marc Antony.) Tansy has a degree in classics which she used for her Love & Romanpunk collection that I adored. The collection is available in all/most of the ebook markets. She’s also doing a genderflipped space opera serial of Three Musketeers.
What have you finished reading?
My first Oyster book was E.L. Konigburg’s From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. No, I’ve never actually read it. I’ve seen bits of the movie versions, so I knew some of the plot, just not the specifics. It really just made me want to go back to the Metropolitan Museum and scout the parts I didn’t see the last time I was in town on a daytrip. I mostly remember seeing the Greek & Roman wing that didn’t exist back then -- I know I never made it over to the Egyptian area at all. The MET even dedicated a newsletter for kids geared to Mixed-Up Files fans -- they still get queries years later. It is dated and implausible from the financial perspective, but part of me doesn’t care. Part of me is hiding out in a museum.
I am quite sad to admit I finished the last Sarah Caudwell Hilary Tamar mystery, A Sibyl in her Grave. Sad because there are no more and that’s quite depressing. It did leave me contemplating how one would go about adapting these books in BBC/PBS fashion, especially if you wanted to keep Hilary’s gender identity left up in air. One suggestion might be to put Hilary more offstage and turn the letters and telexes into more modern emails -- not an ideal place for your detective. On the other hand, it’d be interesting what a director would do with that box completely open. The only thing that skewed me one direction or other was Hilary’s interactions with the hated Bursar in the final book and how he reacted towards Hilary. I go back and forth. I’m almost afraid to ask how they’d cast my dear namesake.
What will I read next?
I never win Goodreads giveaways, but somehow I managed to snag a Librarything ARC for Melissa De La Cruz’s Vampires of Manhattan, her Blue Bloods all grown up spin-off. I’m both looking forward/dreading this, since I haven’t been able to get into her dystopian Frozen at all.